A Practical Framework for Evaluating Hauling Costs

This study demonstrates the use of an Excel program “Routechaser” to assess the effects of tract location, vehicle operating parameters, operating costs and other physical and economic inputs on the costs of transporting wood products from roadside to mill. The application chosen, a comparison of the effects of trucking costs from four tracts in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, to eight markets, demonstrates that for forestry, as for any other real estate, value is a function of location. This is especially true if forest management is directed toward lower valued commodity products. Trucking costs were most restrictive on pulpwood, essentially eliminating many markets for several of the tracts. Trucking costs eliminated one market for all quadrants, another market for three, and three markets for one quadrant each.